God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself, and your role on Earth is to attach yourself to that divine force and let yourself be released to it.
My first deepening of spirituality came when I was 6, when I was moved from my grandmother and sent to live with my mother - whom I really did not know - who had moved to Milwaukee. Something inside myself knew that I was never going to see my grandmother again - I would be wasting my time to live in that space of wanting that.
You can't accomplish anything worthwhile if you inhibit yourself. If life teaches you nothing else, know this for sure: When you get the chance, go for it.
I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.
Every time a child is saved from the dark side of life, every time one of us makes the effort to make a difference in a child's life, we add light and healing to our own lives.
You know that old joke about the guy who lives to be 104? The punch line goes something like 'If I knew I was gonna get this old, I'd have taken much better care of myself.' Well, guess what? We actually are living longer, and the time to start taking care of ourselves is right this minute.
Learn from every mistake because every experience, encounter, and particularly your mistakes are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are.
There's a group of 12 oak trees on my property in California that I call 'my disciples.' Their branches form a canopy over the ground, and I sit underneath them for inspiration.
If something feels right, I do it. If it feels wrong, I don't. It's really very, very simple, but you've got to be willing to take your chances doing stuff that may look crazy to other people - or not doing something that looks right to others but just feels wrong to you.